Lifting myself up...

Today I made a conscious effort to recognize every single time I thought someone was mad at me. Turns out it's pretty often, and for pretty stupid things, ie not returning my texts quickly, not looking up at me, sometimes for no reason at all. All this time I thought I had been on my way to getting over caring what other people thought. Not even close.

My husband has started watching The West Wing from Season One onward, and I caught an episode with him the other night. I found it extremely cool when President Sheen said in an address that he had trouble backing legislation that assumes criminality. I can't remember what this was in reference to, but he was basically saying that it is not wise to expect people to act negatively, and thus, to prepare for it preemptively. Unfortunately we do this everyday. But today, after realizing that maybe, just maybe, not everyone is against me and hates me, I felt better. It's quite a change to live in a world that supports you instead of one that is constantly trying to tear you down. For instance, I took a day off this week to celebrate my anniversary. In my head, all my students' parents hated me for rescheduling their children so that I could go on vacation. But when I thought back on it today, they all wished me a happy trip. Likewise, I am currently putting together some submissions for a photography contest, and you wouldn't believe how many people have chipped in and offered to help. With no benefit to themselves, no less. What an idea that people innately want to help you. I started to picture myself like a kid in a baseball uniform on top of the world's shoulders. Maybe people really do want to lift people up. It's easy to get mired down in the poopooheads of the world and assume that everyone is out to get you. But what a better world to live in where people actually want to help people, even total strangers, and in ever more meaningful ways than donating money.

It reminded me of the third time I went to see The Lovely Bones this past week with a friend. Afterward, we were discussing the movie, and he mentioned how he had gathered from the imagery that Heaven, or bliss, was depicted as the afterlife, and Hell, or misery, our current life. But, to me, it seemed that both can be both. It's truly a matter of what you make of it. What you dwell on is where you dwell. So if you dwell on the poopooheads of the world, you will live in a world of shit. If you dwell on the openness and giving of the world, you will live in a higher world, lifted up on the shoulders of humanity.



There is one line in The Lovely Bones that just gets me every time. It is actually the basis for the opening scene in the movie version. It is spoken by the main character's father in response to her crying for the plastic penguin who lives inside her snow globe. She is five at the time, and worries that he is all alone in there. But, her father reassures her that he is fine. "He's trapped in a perfect world," he says. This line kept echoing in my head during my brief jaunt in the snowy mountains of North Carolina this week. Being surrounded by snow and peace, I definitely felt like the penguin.